Although an opioid-abuse epidemic was raging, doctors who had access to the addictive drugs were brazenly selling them to addicts with no pretense of medical treatment, including one case in which a Memphis physician was doling out thousands of scripts in exchange for cash.
One "patient" crossed state lines and got 10 opioid prescriptions, under 10 fictitious names from the Memphis doctor, despite new federal laws designed to keep the drugs out of addicts' hands. Yet the doctor felt so persecuted that he took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In "Code Blue," a much buzzed-about book coming out this week, author Mike Magee dredges up this anecdote from 1919 and many others to show readers that the present dysfunction in U.S. health care is not an aberration, but a persistent feature of a system ruled by self-interested institutions. The book depicts more than a century of bad behavior by what Magee, himself a medical doctor, refers to as the Medical Industrial Complex.
The book exposes how doctors, drug companies, hospitals, pharmacies, insurers, lawmakers and special interests have colluded over the years to protect their own turf and profits, despite relentless public demand for a system that serves patients instead of entrepreneurs.
"We need to work out a system that includes a greater emphasis on preventive care, sufficient public funding for health insurance for those who cannot afford it in the private sector, competition among both health care providers and health care insurance providers to keep down the costs of both, and decoupling the cost of health care from the cost of adding workers to the payroll." These words were spoken not by Bill Clinton in 1993, nor Bernie Sanders in 2019, but by President Richard Nixon in 1972, Magee writes.
Nixon wasn't known for embracing liberal-leaning policies. So if he could find reason to criticize a lack of competition in our health care system and support for the tenets of universal health care coverage, how has the United States avoided adopting stronger policies to make the health care system work for patients?
"Code Blue" supplies the answer to that question. In the process, Magee comes out in favor of a "standardized single payer authority/multi-plan delivery system that provides a secure package of basic benefits for all," among other changes, making it well-timed reading for the upcoming Democratic presidential debates.
Magee's insight is based on his deep personal experience with the health care industry, which included executive roles in pharma, hospital leadership and direct patient care. Today he works as a professional observer of the industry, as editor of HealthCommentary.org and as a visiting scholar at Presidents College at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
